Good morning. Hey, it's good to see you guys.
I'm Cole. I'm lead pastor here at Frontier
Church. And, and you are stepping into
the middle of our sermon series on faith and work that we are
calling. Thank God it's Monday.
I, I know what you're thinking, man.
I, I can't wait to hear Cole's annual Mother's Day sermon,
which is not going to happen this morning and I don't have an
annual Mother's Day sermon. So I'm just preaching Bible this
morning. Mothers, we see you.
We think that you're awesome. But today we're focused on thank
God, it's Monday. I'm look so up until this point,
if you haven't been here the last couple weeks, our vision
for Christianity, faith and work has been entirely positive.
So a couple weeks ago we talked about being image bearers and
how that applies to the way that we do our work.
Last week Carlos talked about faith and work as a means of
mission in the workplace. So it's been almost entirely
positive that work is good. We should be passionate about
work. I'm pushing to the other side
this morning, though. OK, so the, the text this
morning and the focus of this morning is going to be on on
work and idolatry. So we are going to, we're going
to come face to face with the possibility that idolatry it is
possible. And so I'll explain our terms,
I'll give us clarity, and hopefully the Spirit gives you
revelation. And we are changed people this
morning because this it's just a great day to become more like
Jesus. Amen.
Let me pray and we'll jump in.
Heavenly Father. Yeah.
I just pray that you would. Yeah.
Lord, just grant me, grant me the freedom to be honest and
transparent and open about my own struggles with idolatry.
And I think that's why you've got me preaching the sermon,
Lord, is because if we look at the sliding spectrum and if we
look at work as laziness or work as idolatry, the one that I
struggle with, Lord, is idolatry.
And so this week has been a week of repenting for me and
receiving your forgiveness this week.
And yeah, I just pray that I would have the guts this morning
and that you would give me the courage this morning to be open
and honest about my own struggles with idolatry.
And I pray that you would also heal me through that.
And so in the precious name of Jesus, all God's people prayed.
Amen. Hey, Bonwell, you with me back
there? I was going to run slides from
my iPad and ain't working. All right, so I'll just point at
you throughout all of it. We got a great relationship.
We'll figure it out, right. Yeah.
So work and. Get this iPad out of here.
Work at Idolatry. There's a, there's a
conversation with my five year old daughter Della that I've, I,
I, I had it with her about six months ago.
And it's the type of conversation that I've, I was
fearing for a couple years. So one of the reasons why I was
fearing that conversation is because Della, I don't know if
you know her, she's amazing. She's she's my favorite, but she
is. Whoops.
That leaked out, didn't it? I love all my kids equally.
Dell is a hoot though, OK? And one of the reasons why she's
a hoot, because she is, is because she is.
Absolutely. She's the queen of Jesus Jukes,
which I think she got from me. If you don't know what Jesus
Jesus Duke is, it's the ability to randomly insert God or Jesus
into every conversation, even to the point where you get some eye
rolls, right? And so like, you know, some
dudes are talking football together and maybe one dude was
like, hey, did you see that touchdown?
They score. And you know, the Jesus Duke
dude says, have I told you about the real touchdown in life, the
crucifixion of right, That's a Jesus Juke where you got to Juke
the conversation into that? And Della, she's the queen of
Jesus Jukes. Like we I'll say something like,
man, nobody, nobody is better than me at baseball.
And Della will be like even God. I'll be like, OK, yeah, OK.
There's, there was 1 almighty who was better than me at, at
baseball, right? I'll be like, we'll be like
having dinner together and I'll be like, there's nothing I love
more than a steak cooked medium rare.
And she'll be like, do you love it more than you love God?
And so she'll just like Jukey in that direction.
She's, she does a great job synthesizing the faith with the
rest of life. And so because of that, there's
this conversation that I've been fearing that I, I knew that we
would have together. And we finally had it a couple
months ago. It was early in the morning.
We had the space heater on. So Della and I, we were curled
up around the space heater together and, and we were
reading and then the conversation came.
She, she looked at me with her beautiful bright blue eyes.
I think she fluttered her eyelashes.
I don't, I don't know if that's a detail that I'm remembering
that wasn't true. I think she fluttered her
eyelashes. She.
Said hey dad, fluttered her. Eyelashes and then she said.
Do you love God more than you love me?
I was like, oh gosh, right. Like what would you say?
What would you say to that question?
You got those? Sweet blue eyes looking at you.
Would you say? Well, no Duff.
We'll look at the Bible, we're supposed.
To look right, dig into it. Send her to a room.
Come on, you didn't know that. Now what would you say to that?
Dad, do you love God more than you love me?
Fortunately for me, the week before I was reading a book by
Rosaria Butterfield. She's a genius, and she actually
tackled this exact same question with her kids in that book.
So I had something locked and loaded.
So it wasn't. Like I was just like came out of
nowhere. So she asks, Dad, do you love
God more than you love me? And I quote Rosaria Butterfield
and I and I say to her, sweetheart, when I love God more
than everybody else, it actually allows me to love everybody else
safely, safely. Fortunately for her, that was a
good enough adequate answer. She didn't press in any deeper
than that. And I think part of the reason
why is because, I mean, at five years old, how could you know?
The. How could you know the beauty of
and the freedom of having a father who at least aims at
loving God more than you? It's a it's a beautiful, it's a
beautiful thing. I think there's nothing.
OK, but I'm just going to say it.
I think there's nothing more hateful and spiteful that you
can do to a person than to idolize them, right?
There's nothing more hateful you can do.
Than elevating another human being to the place of God.
Because whatever you idolize, you will eventually demonize
that. That is a truth.
If if you expect somebody to give you something that only God
can give, that person is not going to meet your expectations.
And then you're going to demonize them and you're going
to be bitter towards them and resentful towards that person.
And so to love God more than anything else, even your own
kids, what it what it allows you to do is it, it allows you to
love everything, love Della without smothering her or
without controlling her or without manipulating her,
without needing her to step into a role that only God deserves to
be in. It allows me to to love her
without putting the terrible parental sin of putting a weight
on my children's shoulders that they were never meant to carry.
It's actually quite freeing. See, the good gifts of God,
whether we're talking spouses or kids or jobs, all of the good
gifts of God, they're like fireworks, right?
They're. Beautiful, gorgeous, meant to be
enjoyed. Like fireworks, if you hold on
to them too tightly, they'll blow up in your face.
And this is true of any idols, but it's particularly true of
our relationship with our work. Whatever work means to you,
whether you're employed, pre employed, unemployed, post
employed, right? Whether you're thinking about a
job, a vocation, being a stay at home home.
Maker. Maybe you're thinking just about
hobbies. Whatever your work is in this
lifetime, if you hold on to it too tightly, it will blow up in
your face. And if you love God more than
you love everything, if you love God more than you love work, you
know what that will do? It will allow you to love your
work safely. So if you're able, let's go
ahead and stand for the reading of the Word of God.
We're we're in Luke 12 this morning, verses 13 through 21, a
familiar parable. It's often called the rich fool
parable. Here's what happens.
Someone in the crowd says to Jesus, Hey, Jesus, tell my
brother to divide the inheritance with me.
But Jesus said to a man who made me a judge or arbitrator over
you. And he said to them, take care
and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life
does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
And then he tells them a parable.
And then he told them a parable, saying, the land of a rich man
produced plentifully. That's good.
And the man thought to himself, what am I going to do?
For I have nowhere to store my crops.
And so he said, I know what I'll do.
I'm going to do this. I'll tear down my barns and I'll
build larger ones. And there I will store all my
grain and all my goods. It increases his quality of
living. And then I will say to my soul,
soul, you made it. You have everything you need
right here. You have ample goods laid up for
many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry.
And then Jesus says, God said to him, Fool, fool, this night your
soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose
will they be? So is the one who lays up
treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
You guys can have a seat. What D the poor guy do wrong?
I don't know if you know this about Jesus.
Jesus doesn't take name calling lightly.
So Jesus doesn't just walk around calling people names.
And in this parable, what's he called this man?
Fool, what's? What's going wrong?
Let me start with a clarity bomb right up front.
OK, So what is idolatry? I've got a couple definitions of
them. Ben.
Here's the first one. Here's Martin Luther describing
idolatry. Luther says whatever your heart
clings to and relies upon, that is your God.
So for Luther, idolatry is anything that you're clinging to
that isn't God. Does that make sense?
Can I get thumbs up? Good.
Here's here's John Piper. Piper gives a similar
definition. Let's round it out just a little
bit. Piper goes on to say idolatry is
what you do when your heart is not satisfied for God.
So for Piper, an idol is something you try to seek
ultimate satisfaction from that isn't God.
Does that make sense? Give me thumbs up.
Good. So these are really important
definitions because I'm going to round it out here.
This is really important because it leads us to our last
definition, which comes from Tim Keller.
Actually, Jared, Uncle Tim to you actually doesn't sound
great, OK. Great Tim Keller says idols
aren't always bad things see that it's not just sin idols
aren't always bad things idols are often good things in bad
places putting a spouse. Which is a good thing in the
place of God. Putting a kid, putting your job,
putting your security, putting anything in the place of God
ends up with idolatry. So let me summarize for us
quick, really quickly. Idolatry is worshipping anything
instead of God. It's taking anything, good
things or bad things and putting them in the place of God.
Whenever that happens, the word that the Bible gives us is
idolatry. And so.
I don't want you to. Walk away from this morning
thinking that you're not allowed to be passionate about your
work. That will break my heart.
If you walked away from the sermon thinking, OK, I don't
want to commit idolatry so I better not enjoy my work at all
or I better not be passionate at all about my work.
That would break my heart. You're allowed to enjoy work.
You're allowed to be passionate about it.
You are and you should be. But what I want to protect you
from this morning is turning a good thing into a God thing.
Make sense? Taking a good.
Thing. And then turning it into a God
thing. That's what.
That's what the rich fool does. Like, this is a pretty familiar
parable, yeah. Yeah, you ever ask?
What did he do? Wrong.
I hit like, honestly, you read the parable and it's like, I
mean, that's just actually pretty standard American Dream
stuff. What the guy do wrong?
Well, here's the deal. It's not verse 16, right?
Look at verse 16. What do you see happening?
The land. This is, this guy's a farmer.
His land produces plentifully, so he's good at his work.
That's not a problem. It's good to be good at your
job. The Bible says whatever you,
whatever you put your hand to, do it with all your might.
So being good isn't the problem. So what's the problem?
What do you do wrong? Well, it's not even verse 18.
In verse 18, what to do? He tears down his smaller barns
and he builds bigger barns. Lots of godly people in the
Bible have big houses. That's there's nothing wrong
with that. So what does he do wrong?
And the answer is in verse 20. He says to his soul, Soul,
you've got everything you need now.
So you have ample goods laid up for many years.
Relax, eat, drink and be merry. Relax.
He finds ultimate comfort in his work and the fruit of his work,
not God. Eat, drink and be merry.
He finds ultimate joy in his work and the fruit of his work
rather than God. So here's the point, and here's
where the story goes sour. When the man looks at his work
and his wealth and says I have everything I need right here.
He loses his soul. Isn't that an implication that
Jesus's criticism where he's like, fool, tonight your soul
was required of you? What's the implication there?
The implication is that he lost his soul.
And this is This is why the devil is so passionate about
getting you to idolize something that's not God, because the
enemy knows that wherever idolatry is committed, people
lose their souls. This is why Satan loves
idolatry, because he knows that it will ultimately make you
forfeit your soul. So I've got a grid for you, Ben.
Go and throw up that grid. This grid, This can this can
apply to all of I'm sorry about the handwriting.
That's my bad. I'll walk you through it.
OK, but this grid it can apply to almost anything, but
especially true with your relationship with work.
What Satan desires to do is he will work day and night to keep
you away from the healthy center.
A healthy godly relationship with work is composed primarily
of two things right there. So if you look at that middle
graph right there, good work right above it.
It's composed of two separate categories.
The first is hard work. I don't know if you know this.
The Bible is pro hard work, right?
The Bible says whatever you I do work hardly on to the Lord.
You should sweat, you should work hard, you should become
excellent, but it needs to be combined with the second
component. You see what the second
component is? It's hard work plus surrender.
So you work, you work hard, you give it your best, but you also
know how to surrender the outcomes to God.
And what that practically looks like is it means you don't spend
the rest of the night daydreaming about it, or
ignoring your family because you obsess over it, or ignoring your
friends because you obsess over it.
What you do is hard work plus surrender.
You work with a purpose, and then you open your hands and you
surrender the outcomes to God. That's a healthy relationship.
That's a healthy relationship with what Satan wants to do is
he loves extremes. He doesn't want you on the road.
He wants to. Push you into one of two
ditches. He delights in propelling
believers towards laziness and idolatrous because it ruins
their witness in in the workplace.
What's laziness? Look over there.
That's on the left. Interestingly, laziness is
exhausting. Right it it feels like, Oh my
gosh. There's just no purpose and
meaning in life. So it's exhausting and what
laziness is. But that's actually next week's
sermon. So I'm not going to preach on
it. But it only has one of the two
components of healthy work. It's got surrender, open hands,
giving it all to God. But it's surrender minus hard
work. And I'm not going to preach on
this this morning, but some, some Christians will
spiritualize work so much that they justify their laziness.
I don't know if you've ever heard a Christian say I'm so
afraid of committing idolatry that I'm not even going to try
at work because I'm so spiritual.
That's a real temptation. If that's you repent of that and
then come back next Sunday for that sermon.
But if you look at if you look at the ditch on the right, you
have idolatry. What's What's idolatry?
Idolatry, like laziness only has one of the two components for
healthy work. Idolatry is hard work minus
surrender. The hard work is good, right?
You work. With a purpose, you work like
Jesus, you work heartily. But.
You're unable to surrender the outcomes, and so you end up
looking to your work for ultimate worth and value.
And because of that, you just can't open your hands and
surrender your work to God. It what does it do?
It keeps you up at night when things don't go perfectly.
You explode and implode. You're willing to do whatever
you can to climb the corporate ladder, even if it means denying
Jesus or destroying your spiritual walk over burnout or
controlling and manipulating your kids.
You end up practicing hard work minus surrender, and that is
idolatry when you get there, right?
To paraphrase and you know, one of the questions you have to ask
is. How does a, how does a Christian
who loves Jesus and is healthy end up in a place where they
have elevated their job to the place of a God?
And that's why I think the book of Exodus is so compelling,
right? The golden calf, they, they
build the golden calf because they freak out because, because
Moses is gone. And so we got to worship some
God. And so they build a golden calf
and Moses walks back and they're all worshipping the golden calf,
right? And as as postmodern people, we
tend to be like, how could they be so stupid?
How could they think that a golden calf that they built with
their own hands was worthy of their worship, was worthy of
being a God? And when Moses presses into
them, I find the answer they give so compelling.
Do you know the answer? Moses is like, what is this evil
you have done? And the peoples, they say he's
threw the gold in the fire and it came out like this, which is
crazy because it's like, no, that's.
How it feels though. You just take a good thing and
then all of a sudden it's like it hops out of nowhere.
How do you wind up here? To paraphrase CS Lewis and the
screw tape letters, the safest Rd. to hell is the gradual 1.
And so here are 4 strategies that the devil will use you to
trick you into going down the gradual Rd. of turning your work
into idolatry. I have one for the screen bond.
Well, here's the first one. The first technique the devil
will use to get you to idolize your job is the devil will
whisper your worth is in your work.
This is so important. The reason why it's so important
is because the devil, the devil's actually not afraid of
you saying that you believe in the Gospel.
He's not afraid of you saying that all of your worth comes
from the crucifixion of Jesus. What he's afraid of is you
believing it. So if he can get you saying,
hey, I believe the Gospel, but then really living your life as
though you're worth and work comes from your job.
It's like mission accomplished. Then then what Satan can do is
he can get you to believe that who you are is what you do, that
who you are is what you accomplish at work.
And then you find yourself craving promotions, craving
titles, craving admiration, and craving metrics even more than
you crave Jesus. The strategy or #2 The second
thing the devil will do is he'll convince you.
He'll convince you that you're serving God even when you're
just serving yourself. The enemy.
Twist language subtly, right? You end up, you end up referring
to exhaustion as faithfulness, bro, right.
You end up referring to your neglect of your family as
sacrifice for the Kingdom. Bro, just twists of language.
But when your job crowds out time for prayer, rest, people or
family, you're no longer serving God.
You're serving an idol. That brings me to the third
strategy of the devil. And this is the foothold that if
I'm not careful personally, this is the one that the enemy will
use in my own life. The third thing the enemy might
do is is the devil will weaponize.
He will weaponize your fear of failure.
But if the if the devil can get you to be terrified, terrified
of being small or insignificant or forgotten or ordinary, then
he can stir your anxiety to the point.
That you confuse the pursuit of excellence over the presence of
God. This is the thing that I really
struggle with. So like, you can do this as a
preacher. I don't know if you know this,
but even as a person handling the word of God, you can idolize
the work. Let me say it this.
Way this is true as a preacher. Biblically accurate sermons
filled with truth filled with truth, but.
Subtly crafted to impress people and make them think much of me.
Satan loves those sermons, even if they're filled with truth.
Satan's not afraid of truth as long as the truth is
self-serving. True sermons.
Ones that quote the Bible. Sermons that quote John Piper,
but designed subtly by a secret motive to make people think
you're so great. God hates those sermons.
And it's it's, it's true not just for preachers, but also
whatever your work is right even doing.
Things with excellence. But subtly, because you want to
be seen as great. God hates those sermons.
And often time the thing he taps into is your fear of failure to
whip you into an anxious frenzy to work yourself to death.
And here's the 4th strategy that the enemy uses.
The devil will also keep you just busy enough to never notice
your idolatry. Just busy enough.
Just busy enough that you've got no time to think, or no time to
ask deep questions to your community.
No space to examine your heart and its relationship with work.
The enemy wants to keep you just productive enough to feel useful
in just enough Christian language to make you feel
righteous. And so, I guess the question.
Here's the question I've been wrestling with all week.
Maybe, maybe you don't. Maybe you don't ask the same
question. Maybe this doesn't haunt you.
The question I've been wrestling with all week is I've been
preparing. This sermon is God.
Why? Why do?
You so passionately hate idolatry.
Have you ever noticed that? Like it's.
It's one of the 10 commandments. Thou shall have no other gods
before me. You read first, John.
It's the last sentence in the letter.
Little children flee, keep yourselves from idols.
Like what's what? What is with God's passion, his
hatred for idolatry. And the reason why I want to
press into this is because sometimes I get the impression,
OK, sometimes I get the impression that one of the
reasons why God hates idolatry is because he's a fun hater,
right? He's God's just anti passion.
He's anti joy, he's anti fun, he's a buzzkill.
And he doesn't want to see us get passionate about anything
besides religion, right? Do you ever feel that way?
So I was wrestling with that last night.
I was, I was walking around in the neighborhood last night,
just asking like Lord. Just reveal your heart.
To me, why? Why do you so passionately hate
idolatry? And I felt like the answer the
Lord gave me last night was so profound and so simple.
I think it was from the Lord. I I was walking around just
saying God. Why do you hate?
Idolatry so much. And the answer I sensed him and
pressed upon my heart was because I love the world so
much, right? His hatred of idolatry is his
love for the world. His love for the world is
inextricably connected to his hatred of idolatry.
God knows better than anybody that idolatry eats the world
alive, right? Eats a lot.
Are you guys with me? I'm just going to talk.
I'm just going to talk honest, OK?
I'm just going to be totally honest about my own struggles
with idolatry. If you want to weaponize my
transparency against me, that's fine.
I'm just going to say it and let the chips fall.
However, about 8 years ago, I planted this church and in the
beginning phases of it, I really like, I really struggled with.
There was a sense in which I was like, man, this is my dream job.
There was this other sense in which I really struggled with
transitioning from being a high school English teacher to being
a church planter. I want to tell you exactly what
it was. OK, but this was seven years
ago. OK, seven years ago.
So this is not like a veiled cry for help.
All right, I've worked through some of this.
I still have some work in front of me to go.
But about seven years ago when I planted the church, I was, this
is going to sound funny to you. I was shocked.
Maybe this is because I didn't really grow up in the church.
I I was shocked when I discovered pretty early in that.
Church people are harder to. Please than high school
students. I don't know if you know that.
They're. They're pickier in high school
students. And I, I really struggled with
that transition. And so I was unloading all of
this to my associate pastor at the time, Andrew Self.
And I, I remember it, a lot of it, it was just a lot of
immaturity. I just needed to get it off my
chest, right? And so I remember just unloading
onto poor Andrew, just unloading onto him, all of this insecurity
I was struggling with. I was like Andrew when I was a
high school teacher. There wasn't a single day that
went by that some high school kid didn't tell me that I was
the best teacher in the whole wide world.
And I give my life to church planting and all I hear is the
opposite. I was like Andrew, I feel like
I'm giving my life to crafting these meals that people just
knit, pack and say I don't like it.
Did you, Nicole, did you listen to the John Piper sermon and all
that? It was.
Awesome. As opposed to mine, right?
Just I just struggled. I'd like, I struggled a lot with
that. I was like, Oh my gosh, all I
seem to do is give people a reason to complain.
But Andrew, that those high schooler kids, they, they treat,
they treated me so much better than church people do.
All church people do is, is whine.
I was like, I swear, dude, I'm going to die because of a lack
of encouragement. I was very dramatic.
I hear that now. I'm still a little dramatic
because then I said the line. I said I said, bro, if our
church doesn't encourage me, I will work myself to death to
earn it. And I.
Remember what Andrew said to me? I'm not going to quote it
perfectly, but he looked at me and he said, bro, that's the
scariest thing I've ever heard you say, except he was from
Texas. So bro, scariest thing you ever
said? I if I don't get it, I will work
myself to death to earn it. That's why God hates idolatry.
He hates idolatry because he knows that idolatry all it
always has collateral damage. Always.
I will work myself to death to earn it.
That inner need to. Prove myself and to work in
order to earn love. You know who gets hurt by that?
Everybody. You, the church.
The pastors who hurt their church the most are the ones who
make the church into an idol every time.
It puts an unbearable weight on the church's shoulders.
No church should be in a position where they feel like
they've got to constantly praise their pastor so that he feels
like they're the best pastor in the world.
No church can. Carry that weight.
It's too heavy. It's too heavy.
You don't need that on your shoulders.
It hurts that. You know who else it hurts?
My family, right? There's always something to say
yes to in pastoral ministry. Some of them need yeses.
But there are so many things to say yes to in pastoral ministry
that it will, if I'm not careful, give me very religious
sounding reasons to say no to my kids for their whole childhood.
And so if I just give myself over to the idol of church
planting, my kids will grow up functionally fatherless like
Tim. Tim Keller.
This Keller said this when Keller planted a church in New
York City. He's he said to his wife.
I'll see you in three years, babe.
That's what idolatry does. It it hurts.
Everybody you know, who else gets hurt by that idolatry if
the Lord doesn't deal with it? Me.
Because I lose my own soul. If I go down that road, it's
gone. Like if I just, if I just turn
my entire spiritual walk with Jesus into a public performance
for church people to try to gain some praise from people who are
probably just going to leave statistically in two to three
years anyways, I lose my soul. And the irony of it, though, and
again, you, you're welcome to judge me if you want.
It's fine. If I were you, I would be using
this story about pastoral ministry as a window into your
own relationship with work, though.
Because here's the irony of it. The irony of it is when I said
that, when I said I will work myself to death to earn it, you
know how it sounded to me? It sounded heroic, right?
Like it sounded brave, and it sounded like something somebody
would write in a book about Charles Spurgeon or something.
It sounded brave. How did it sound to Andrew?
Terrifying. Scary.
I needed Andrew to say to me, that's the scariest thing I've
ever heard you say. And look, we're getting
practical. We're getting really close to my
practical exhortation for the morning, but there's still just
a little bit of leg work to be done.
Then we'll get around to it. But the point is that it's very
hard to see your own idolatry and super easy to see other
people's idolatry. Have you ever noticed that?
Here's to quote Paul Tripp. You guys ready for this?
This is such a great quote. Paul Tripp says, quote, when it
comes to our own sin, we're lawyers.
When it comes to the sins of others, we're judges.
Does that one get an Amen? Like we're really good, Like
we're really good lawyers when it comes to our own sin?
Well, here's why. This is just the right.
But when it comes to the sins of others, we're extraordinary
judges. And so the reality of it is, as
I'm pushing into this this morning and I'm walking you
through some of my own experiences with idolatry, the
truth of the matter is, no matter how much clarity I'll
preach with, the truth of the matter is you're probably just
still blind to your own idolatry, which is
extraordinarily important to see, right?
Because the rich. Fool.
The the dude that Jesus called a fool, he probably he probably
just viewed his idolatry as wisely securing the future.
It's just wise, right? My my own idolatry.
I viewed it as a heroic, hard working wrestler turned church
planter rather than as idolatry. We're lawyers for our own idols
and we're judges for the idols of others.
And here's why I keep pressing into this is the reason why is
because I had this list of four or five different ways to
identify if your work or your job or your calling has become
an idol. And I ditched those four or five
reasons. And the reason why I ditched
those four or five is because all of us would have seen that
list, all of us. And we would have thought, I
know who needs to hear this. We would have, we would have
said that. And then we would have remained
blind to what we're blind to. And so the practical application
for this morning, it just requires, it requires more of a
spine than that. It, it requires more courage
than looking at bulls and points and saying, I think Cole is
number 2 and #3 no, bro, I'm all four probably.
So here's the practical exhortation.
And it's going to require some guts.
And you're going to need to trust Jesus.
What I want you to do this week is I want to, I want you to ask
one Co worker doesn't even need to be a Christian, just a Co
worker you trust. Or if you're a homemaker, ask.
Ask your spouse or your kid somebody who's got a window into
your vocation and calling. Ask them the question, Do you
think that I care too much or too little about my work and
why? Doesn't that make you feel
nervous? Do it.
And, and if the person says too much, you care about work too
much, you don't. You're not allowed to huff and
puff and justify yourself. If they say too little, then
make sure you come back next Sunday for our sermon about work
and laziness. Look, I also have good news for.
You this morning. You want it.
Here's the gospel Jesus wants to save you from your idolatry.
He wants to save you from your idolatry.
Work is a great way to express love.
It's a terrible way to earn love and so if you turn your work
into an idol, then life will become a concentration camp.
Literally. I don't like history buffs.
I don't know if you know this, but you can, you can Google
this. You can look it up.
In Auschwitz, the famous concentration camp during Nazi
Germany, the main entryway to the concentration camp had this
gigantic arching entryway, and on the arch were these massive
iron letters that spelled out a motto.
The first thing, the first thing Hitler wanted concentration camp
prisoners to see when they went into the concentration camp.
Do you know what the motto was? Giant iron letters.
Nazi Germany, They would have been walking in and in German
language, the sign said. Work will set you free.
Isn't that haunting? Work will set you free.
Why did Hitler want his concentration camp prisoners to
believe the motto? Work sets you free.
Because he knew psychological warfare.
He knew linguistic warfare. And he knew that if he could get
the prisoners to make an idol out of working there, he could
get them to forfeit their soul and dehumanize themselves and
stop viewing themselves as images of God worthy of love and
respect. He knew that.
And the scary thing to me as a pastor is that there are whole
denominations of Christianity and pastors out there who are
preaching the same gospel as Nazi Germany.
That work will set you free, that you can be justified by
your work, that you can earn God's love because of your work.
It's a false gospel. So let me say it straight.
Work doesn't set you free. Only Jesus sets you free.
Amen. Only Jesus sets you free.
That's the gospel. Jesus was crucified to forgive
you from all of your sins, and by grace, through faith in Him,
you are. You are covered in His
righteousness and you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and you
are imbued with ultimate worth and value and meaning and you're
guaranteed a place in the resurrection to live in the joy
of the Lord forever. Your job, on the other hand,
it's a good gift from God, but it's going to replace you the
day after you retire. Don't put it on the throne where
only God deserves to be. Your work does not love you like
Jesus does. Only Jesus deserves that spot.
Only Jesus deserves your praise. Only Jesus deserves your glory.
Only Jesus deserves your worship.
Only Jesus deserves ultimate worth and value.
Because only Jesus sets you free.
And when you believe that, Jesus sets you free.
And Christ alone, like faith in the gospel alone, can set me
free. Once you get there, then you
don't need to work in order to earn love anymore.
You can just work in order to express.
Love, which is so healthy. If I don't get, if I don't get
it from my church, If I don't get, if I don't get the
promotion, If I don't get the positive feedback.
I don't get encouragement from the church.
I will work myself to death to earn it.
When I think back to saying that seven years ago and the
headspace and spiritual space I was in when I said that, I like,
I just, I just think, fool, you fool, just like God says to the
rich. Fool, fool.
Right. If I were to go back in time and
talk to myself and encourage myself seven years ago, I don't
know what I would say. I think, I think I would say
something to the effect of a young man.
You're going to want to take a seat, I think I would say.
I'm sorry that you wanted church planting to be more honestly.
I'm sorry that it didn't fulfill your heart and your heart's
desires honestly. But with time and growth, you'll
become a good pastor. But this thing that you feel
inside of your soul? This thing that you feel, this
lack of encouragement that you'll do anything to earn, your
church isn't. Doing this to you.
They are encouraging you, you just can't hear it.
They're not doing this. To you, God is God's doing this
to you. God's got you in this place.
Because he knows. He knows that this church plant
can't give you what only God can.
And God loves you so much. He loves you so much that He
will keep you perpetually dissatisfied in life and in
work, just above drowning but just below flying too high.
That space? God loves you so much that He
will keep you right there until you learn to go to God for what
only God can give you. Don't.
Kick the dog because it's not laying X.
Don't get mad at the water balloon because you threw it
into the well and it didn't fill the whole thing.
It can't do that for you, only God can.
So I guess my question is, do you find work dissatisfying?
Did you think it would be more? Are you shocked at how all of
your coworkers and bosses don't see how special you are?
Were you hoping for more from your job?
Come to Jesus and work hard and then surrender.
Work hard and then just let go. Let go.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give us the power to do
that. I can't.
I have. I have noticed, Lord, that I
can't get myself to repent of an idol like I can't, Lord, I can't
force myself to let go of something I'm holding too
tightly by just saying to myself, let go, Lord, the only
thing that I have found sufficient to mortify idols
isn't to try to let go. It's to look up and be
captivated by the beauty and glory of the gospel and by
gazing at your beauty and by seeing your glory, that actually
empowers me to weaken my grip, unclench my fist, and then just
let go. And so, Lord, I pray for the
individuals in our church who are making an idol out of their
work, or for that matter, an idol out of anything.
May they see that there is power in the name of Jesus.
And today he wants to break every chain.
He wants to break chains so that people feel freedom, joy, and
satisfaction in the Lord Jesus. And so would you do, Lord?
Would you do that to us this morning?
Would you help us let go? It's in the precious name of
Jesus that all God's people prayed.
Amen. Let's stand and let's worship
this God together.